Month: March 2012

In a continuous effort not to be left in the dust by Dean Motoyama and his secret ninja painting techniques, I sat down and worked on ten of my Byzantine Thematic Skirmishers for my Early Thematic Byzantine Army. The figures are from Crusader Miniatures and the painting process was sped up considerably by the use of Army Painter Brand Products, namely the strong tone shade.

First I affixed the models to magnetic bases manufactured by Shogun Miniatures (as is the metal movement tray). I then cut down some Xyston spears to use as the javelins and glued them on. Note- I want to say thanks to all of those model manufactures who DO NOT supply spears for their models…you can all suck it! I then primed the models white using Armory Spray Primer and painted the faces with GW elf flesh.

So I kept with a pretty narrow color pallet consisting of GW skull white, bleached bone, blood red, mithril silver, black, graveyard earth and calthan brown…Then dip! I few post dip drying touch ups and finishing off the bases prior to spraying with dull coat. The bucklers are still drying and will be attached over the weekend. Okay DONE! They are not perfect, but are ready for the table top. Only 150 more model to go until the army is finished.

I was recently asked how I can get a new batch of figures painted so fast. My first answer is Army Painter, but I also need to talk a little bit about paint planning. When speed painting it is important to look at what area(s) you are painting first, your color pallet and finishing it off for the table. Now this tutorial is considered a quick and basic guide. I will generally add some additional steps and colors to my pallet, but this is a speed paining guide.

I always paint faces/skin first and the only important thing to remember is to cover all of the flesh with a good coat of paint. The next next is find the largest area which is adjacent to the flesh area(s), in this case the upper body. I painted the flesh with GW Elf Flesh and the Cloth area with Bleached Bone. Pay attention not to cover any of the flesh, but other than that just put on a quick, heavy coat.

The next two steps keep with a limited color pallet. The bow and pants are painted with Graveyard Earth and the boots, quiver and belt are painted with Scorched Brown. The helmet was painted with Chainmail and the arrows were touched up with Skull White. That’s it…SIX COLORS ONLY.

Going for speed painting, a typical 10 man unit like this will take about 3 hours from start to finish. In this case, finished means dipped with Army Painter and letting it dry overnight before spraying it with Dull Coat. I didn’t base the figs because basing can become a time consuming step. If you are in a real hurry, you can just flock or paint with a flat color…and your done. Even with these last steps, it shouldn’t take more than an additional hour or two. Remember speed painting is about the final result, not how it looks during the process. The figures in this post are West Wind Miniatures-Arthurians. The figure shown in the first and final frame have been dull-coated. Happy Painting!